Mourning
by populardarling
Summary: Everyone always sympathizes with the victims' families, but what about the shooter's? What about their suffering?- AU 1994 Violet's reaction to Tate's school shooting. Read, enjoy and review!


**So I decided to give fanfiction a try again. I got this idea after watching a movie about a shooting and the audience sees the POV of the wife of the killer. I've always wanted to do something like that, and felt Tate and Violet are perfect for that idea. It's AU, but it does contain the Murder House idea. I hope you enjoy and tell me what you think! **

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><p>"Violet?" my mother asks, knocking on my door. I don't respond. I curl up deeper within myself when she enters the room. "Violet, sweetie, I think this is something we need to discuss." What is there to discuss?<p>

I feel her weight at the edge of my bed, but I don't bother looking up. Any sudden movement I make will cause the tears I've been trying so hard to conceal to pour out. How was it possible to cry so much?

My mother's hand gives a gentle squeeze to mine as she pulls me up into her arms. The sudden movement do cause the tears to come, but I don't care. Didn't I have every right to cry like those families who lost their children today? I lost so much, too. I deserve to cry. Just this once.

"Shh," she comforts, rubbing soothing circles on my back.

"How could I let him do it?" I cry out at last. My voice is hoarse from crying, and I choke on another sob. The loss, the guilt, the betrayal- it was all becoming too much for a sixteen year old. "I should have stopped him!"

"Don't blame yourself, Violet," my mother comforts, still rubbing my back. "This isn't your fault." Oh, but it is. It is my fault because I had known what he was going to do, but I never thought he would actually do it. Never in a million years.

"I should have told someone."

I don't know how long we sit in the dark, but finally my mother tucks me into bed and kisses my forehead, wishing me a goodnight. I wait until the sound of her footsteps vanish before I rip the covers off. Stumbling around in the dark, I find my boots and pack of cigarettes. The desire to get the fuck out of this room has never been stronger, and I need to see his house. I needed... What I needed was him to tell me this shit wasn't real, or to hold me, but he is dead. He isn't going to comfort me.

Sneaking out of my house isn't hard. I am so used to climbing down the rose lattice that it feels like any other night. I even expect him to make a sarcastic remark at how great my ass looks from the ground below. A tear escapes as I land in the yard, unnoticed to the world. Those days are over with.

The front room light is still on, and I find that strange for my parents, but I don't care. The only thing I care about is that house. I don't know why, but I need to see it. So I start to run.

After half a block of running I have to stop. My lungs are hacking themselves up and my tears have started to form again. God, I am so pathetic. I stumble numbly, trying desperately to keep my mind and body in check, to his house.

It is cold outside. I should have brought my jacket, but I didn't because the thought of his smell makes me want to cut. God it is cold out.

When I finally reach his street I notice how the air has shifted. It is even colder now, with hardly any children trick-or-treating. I can see his house from here- a cop car out front and all the lights still on. I can't go any closer. It's like an invisible wall is forbidding me from going farther.

I start to shake, having to sit down on the curb, when the realization of the truth hits me full force. My boyfriend, Tate Langdon, has indeed shot and killed fifteen students. I still cannot believe it. I keep my focus on his house, remembering how many nights we would sneak back to his house, drunk or high. How many times I would sneak into his basement after my parents had had a bad fight, letting him hold me, to comfort me. That sweet and crazy boy killed people today.

I feel a presence sit next to me, but I don't bother to see who it is. I am too wrapped up in my thoughts to care. Reaching into my pocket, I fish around blindly for my pack of cigarettes, but they aren't there. What the hell?

"Here." I jump at the sound of his voice. He's sitting next to me, with that stupid grin on his face because he's stolen my cigarettes without me noticing, a little game of his he always enjoyed playing. I don't take the offer. Instead, all I can do is stare at him in shock. "Are you finally quitting now?"

"You're dead." It's all I can spit out. No tears come by me saying this, though. Perhaps it's this twisted dream of seeing him? Did I take something before I left?

Tate lowers his hand, looking back at his house with a grimace. "Yeah, I guess I am."

This cannot be fucking happening. Why is he so fucking calm about this? I stand up, wobbling a bit to catch my balance, and start to head home. It was a mistake to come because obviously my mind was fucking with me now.

"Violet," he calls, pulling me back to him. He spins me around and I look up at his boyish, Kurt Cobain wannabe face. "Violet, please."

I don't do anything but stare into his eyes for a moment. They are pleading with me, but this can't be real because he's dead. He killed fifteen students today and then was killed himself. I slap him.

The slap sends an energy through me that I had only felt a couple of times before. I don't want to cry anymore. I want to hit him, beat him up, because he hurt me. He hurt us.

"How could you?" I scream at him, slapping him again. "How could you?" He's crying now, but I don't care. Let him cry. "You weren't supposed to kill anyone, Tate! You weren't supposed to leave me in this shithole!" I push him away when he tries to comfort me because now I am crying. I feel more alone than I had ever felt before.

"Violet-" he cries, but I continue to hit him until he's on the ground, curled up in a ball.

"How could you?" I ask for the millionth time. My knees buckle underneath me and I'm sitting next to him in the street, both of us crying. He pulls me into his arms and I let him comfort me because dammit, I want the boy I knew back.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers into my hair, kissing me after each apology. "I'm so sorry."

Our tears finally settle into soft sniffles, and it feels like old times again. It feels nice. I study his face, tracing his cheekbones with my fingers. "I thought you were joking when you said you were going to bring a gun to school." He closes his eyes, not wanting to face up to what he had done.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. I realize he's not sorry for killing those kids. I realize he probably feels no guilt for taking away innocent lives. Tate isn't sorry for the destruction and hurt he's caused _those _families. He's sorry for making _me_ cry, for upsetting _me_. What a selfish bastard.

"No one will remember you," I whisper, gazing up into the sky. The moon is out, adding the perfect touch to a Halloween night. "No one will remember how good you are to your sister, or how you have this theory on aliens, or..._any of it!_" No one's going to believe how you saved me from killing myself over the summer, I think, remembering how messed up I was last summer. No one's going to remember the Tate I knew, and all because he wasn't _thinking. _

"I'm sorry."

I rip away from his grasp. I'm so tired of his useless apologies. "I don't believe you," I spit. "You killed people, Tate. People we didn't even know!" I slap his hand away and stand up. "You had seven months left in this hellhole! Seven months left until you could have made something of yourself!"

Tate reaches for my hand, trying to calm me down. "Please, Violet," he pleads, "I needed to send them to a better place. This place is so..._fake_ and _dirty_. No one deserves to stay here." He wants me to understand his fucked up mind, his fucked up logic.

"Would you have killed me, Tate?" I cross my arms over my chest, afraid of what his answer will be. "If I had been at school today instead of ditching like we had _planned _would you have shot me?"

"I wouldn't have shot you," he whispers, ashamed of his answer. "I was planning on meeting you so we could OD on pills. I would never shoot you, Violet." This was the monster talking. The one he always warned me about whenever we got into a fight. I start to cry again, holding on to myself so I wouldn't fall apart. Tate rubs his hands up and down mine, trying to get me to calm down.

"Violet, you deserve so much better than this life. So much bad happens here, and I wanted to take you away from that. I had it all planned out..." I step away from him, almost tripping over my two feet, and start heading home. I can't hear any more of this. I don't want to think about death. I'm tired of thinking about it. I just want to go home and sleep.

I know he is following me, but I can't handle hearing this side of him. "Leave me alone, Tate!" I scream in the street, not even caring what others will think when they see a pathetic teenage girl yelling to herself. His words keep playing in my mind, and I want to hate him, I want to hate him for the hideous crime, but it's so hard. It's so hard to hate someone who you shared similar thoughts with. It's so hard to judge someone for something you've thought about. What is wrong with me?

I don't want to remember him like this- how everyone is going to remember him by. They'll never know him the way I thought I knew him. I want to remember him as the misunderstood boy who understood me. Who stopped the bullies at our school from messing with me when I reached my breaking point. I want to remember _that _guy because I'll be the only one who will.

Reaching my house, I turn and look to see if he is still following me, but Tate is nowhere to be found. Maybe it is all in my head. Maybe the emotional strain has gotten to be too much for me, and I'm starting to see my dead boyfriend. Maybe I'm as crazy as he was because I've thought about killing people before, I've imagined how the blood of all the people who have hurt me would feel, but I would never act upon it. Or would I?

I quietly sneak back into my room, pondering the state of my sanity, and pulling off my boots before I slip underneath my covers.

I feel unsettled because I fear what will happen when we all go back to school. Sixteen people won't be returning, and only one will be mourning Tate. I fear what people will say to me, what they will possibly do to me for mourning such a disturbed boy. I don't blame them. I don't quite understand why I'm mourning him, either.

I feel arms wrap around me as I settle myself to sleep, trying to forget the world, trying to figure out what I will say when I hear those cruel judgements on Tate. I know people will forget I lost someone dear to me, too.

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><p><strong>So I hope you enjoyed it, and tell me what you think! <strong>


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